Category: Photo & Video App

At Google I/O last week, we got a glimpse of new one-touch auto fixing of photos that would be coming to Google Photos both in the app and on the web. It seems that those auto fix suggestions are now starting to roll out.

Leveraging AI, Photos will now pop up a small banner on a photos to suggest a fix for that photo. The AI looks at the lighting quality, orientation and content of the photo and gives you the suggested fix. Tap the pop-up and you open a simple editor which shows you the updated photo. Long press the photo to see the original. If you like the suggested fix, save it and your photo in your Google Photos library is updated.

The ever popular photo editing app Paint.net has finally made its way to the Microsoft Store for Windows 10. The app will sell for $8.99 but right now has a special launch price of $5.99 along with a free 30-day trial for first time users.

The updated version of Paint.net is build 4.0.18 for those keeping score at home and with it now in the Microsoft Store, you have automatic updating and overall stability improvements in Windows 10.

Google has released a nice update to their photo editing app, Snapseed. The update brings back a popular perspective tool while adding a new export feature and other improvements. The vertical and horizontal correction tool is back, allowing you to quickly and easily adjust the contrast and saturation of a photo just by dragging your finger across the photo. It makes editing quickly and like other filters in the app, there are several preset ones for you to use as a starting point or final edit.

Along with this, the Face filter has been improved with a choice of styles for you to use. In addition to the Smooth and Eye filters, there are a couple of new Spotlight as well as combination filters to help enhance the faces in your photos.

Snapseed has an update rolling out for both Android and iOS that brings several tweaks and improvements to the popular photo editing app. The update, version 2.14 for those keeping score at home, refines the Face filter which was introduced a couple of releases ago, making it smoother and giving users a bit more control over how it is applied. The Face filter is a powerful feature of the app and the new tweaks to it are excellent based on my testing this morning.

For Android users, the Perspective tool brings back the horizontal and vertical adjustment modes. These went away a few revs ago and many users (Clinton raises his hand) asked for it back as it was a super handy tool. Google, who owns Snapseed, listened and it has returned.

Some eleven months after it was made available for iOS users, Microsoft Selfie has finally hit the Google Play Store for Android devices. The app is aimed at giving you some filtering options for photos you take with the app or selfies that you have in your camera roll. While the selfie camera app-meets-filter app is not something new, this app does a pretty good job. With each filter in the app you can adjust the intensity and there are 12 different filters that you can apply to your photos. There is also a preview button that you can tap and hold to see the photo with and without the applied filter.

Google has rolled out another update to Google Photos and if you look at the release notes, you would think it was just a but fix release. However, the new 2.1 version of the app has a new Assistant card that can help you with photos you shot sideways. In previous versions of Photos – and other photo apps for that matter – if you shot a photo that was sideways, you would have to manually go in and edit that file by rotating it. You can still do that in this update to Photos but now the app can analyze your photos and determine if it is sideways. If so, it will give you an Assistant card suggesting that it can auto-rotate the photo for you without you having to manually do so.

The Snapseed team over at Google have released another update to the Android photo editing app. The update, version 2.9 for those keeping score at home, brings several new tools to the app as well as some improvements on preferences. The new tools include a new Face tool which allows you to bring focus to faces, smooth skin and to add clarity to eyes. Like the other filters in the app, you can adjust the strength of each of these elements of the tool to bring it to your liking or you can simply have Snapseed analyze your photo and make the adjustments automatically. In testing out this new tool, the smoothing feature is very impressive. It softens up lines and wrinkles but doesn’t over do it with too much softness.

For those of you who use Google Photos, there are some big updates coming your way both in the Android app and on the services website. In a post on his Google+, Google’s John Elstone posted about the changes which are going to be released this week, likely today or tomorrow. The first two updates have to do with the Android based Google Photos app and focus on being able to delete backed up photos from your devices and SD cards to save space. The third update is on the Google Photos website that brings a much wanted downgrade feature for photos from “Original Quality” to “High Quality”.